In the sense that while it is better than nothing, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Unlike Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, UFV’s Co-Curricular Record Credit (CCR) program is an attempt to enhance students’ resumes and academic portfolios by giving credit for extracurricular activities at UFV. There are three major issues I see with this. First, hours are only logged semesterly and require short essays on how the volunteer hours helped you, which is already one hurdle too high and too many considering they cannot retroactively authorize or confirm volunteer activity I’ve been doing for the last four years. Considering everything else I already have to do, I feel like there should be more coordination between SUS and the relevant UFV departments in logging these hours into a shared system as we go so the onus isn’t on the students. Secondly, whatever this “credit” means or is worth is in my view diluted when they count everything from setting up chairs (not that it’s not important) to organizing events and fundraisers as pretty much the same thing. If this program is going to work at all, I would hope it would be more stringent, if only to encourage people to give more than the bare minimum. Lastly, with everything I’ve laid out in mind, I fail to see what the benefit is (compared to the work I’d have to do to receive the credit) over just putting the projects I’m proud of or skills I’ve learned on my resume like any other activity?
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